So there you are, minding your own business, when the CEO of Giant Game Publisher approaches you with an offer: he wants you to lead the development of a brand new entry in That First Person Shooter that he makes, and he wants you to make sure it’s fun to play. How do you make sure it’s fun to play?

It’s no secret that Duke Nukem Forever was not particularly well received. As a self-described snob of first person shooters, I’m certainly not wild about the game. Broken encounters, weak level design, and an inconsistent sense of humor held Duke Nukem Forever back from being a great game. Duke deserves better. Duke…

Downloadable-only games have exploded in popularity in the last few years. Gone are the days when retail was the be-all, end-all of video games. Now, some of the coolest, most inventive games are just a few clicks away from being able to play. Still, I can’t help but feel like the grass is greener on the other side of…

Fall is upon us, which means two things: Pumpkin Spice and Video Games. But before that, we have time to sit back and contemplate things, like how great Doom was, because Doom was totally great. But enough about the past. Today, we celebrate the future.

Most discussion about superhero video games revolves around the same few boring superheroes. People want to be Superman. They want to be Wolverine. They want to be Batman. Everyone wants to be the most popular and least interesting superheroes in comic books. Enough, I say! There’s only one superhero we absolutely…

I do not relish the thought of academia, through few faults of its own. We’re just not that compatible. What I want to do and what it wants to do fits on a Venn diagram with “philosophy” as our only area of overlap. I mention this because I think I’ve figured out something about games, you see, and I’d like to name it…

Wow! GameXplain has posted a 2 hour, 6 minute, 13 second in-depth exploration of all of the footage we have so far of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is pretty cool. I’m going through it now, and while some of it sticks out to me as over-analysis (gut feeling: those lights in the Temple of Resurrection…

Goooooood morning, Kotaku! It is I, your incredible weekend guest editor, Doc! Got a load of stuff planned for you today, including articles about the best X-Man, Why I should be given control of Duke Nukem, and a bunch of other stuff.

If there is one simple, undeniable fact about anything, it’s this: every game idea is improved by putting it in first person. Don’t believe me? Cool, that’s the point I’m here to prove, and I will do that simply by listing all the times the first person perspective made other, lesser games better.

Mike Fahey is my role model, and he wrote this review of Digimon Cyber Sleuth, and it’s great, and you should read it, but in case you wanted someone else’s take on an excellent Digimon game, here’s mine: “Finally! A JRPG worth playing!”

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a pretty good video game. I like many things about it. It is beautiful. I haven’t predicted where the story’s going yet. I get a kick out of running errands for people. Some of the quests have me genuinely unsure what decision to make.

Our favorite games are often the ones that made us feel these really cool, powerful things. How’d you feel when you met your first Colossus or saw Rapture for the first time? I think the best games stick with us because everything about them, from mechanics to presentation, is all about crafting that perfect, powerful…

I apply the flow cannon...

I have an overactive imagination. When I read books, I imagine myself as being in the book’s world, as sharing the experience with the characters themselves. Video games are cool because they actually bring that experience to life; with The Witcher, for instance, fans of the books finally got to be the witcher Geralt,…